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IAESTE Kazakhstan
10 years with IAESTE
IAESTE Kazakhstan was founded in 1995, the
Engineering Academy being the basic structure
to establish co-operation with the leading higher
educational, academic institutions and business
circles of Kazakhstan. On the initiative of the
President, Zhumagulov Bakhitzhan, the
representatives from Universities participated in
the first IAESTE meeting in Almaty. Now IAESTE
Kazakhstan is registered as a legal body in the
Ministry of Justice with 8 Local Committees.
Starting with only 4 students, our numbers have
multiplied in the past few years. The first
National Committees to support our exchange
in IAESTE were from Germany, UK and
Switzerland. Now the average number of
traineeships per year is 24 with a duration of 8-
12 weeks. At the beginning of our activities most
of our placements came from Universities but
now the majority come from Companies. This
year one big design company “KazGor” signed
an agreement with us. This company makes a lot
of projects for the Government and it will be
interesting for foreign students to become
acquainted with state
architectural politics.
Over the last year the
Kazakh Government has
been making all
necessary efforts to
reform the Kazakh
educational system,
including the higher
education sector.
International cooperation
has played a major role in higher
education and has developed the intellectual
capacity and technological capabilities of its
Universities as well as raise its achievements to
international standards. But the main problem
of our engineering Universities was limited
practical experience which IAESTE provides.
Students now have an incredible opportunity
to gain international co-operation with foreign
companies and universities during their
summer vacations.
The IAESTE programme offers our young
people, not only work related experience that is
interesting and fruitful, but also rare
opportunities to understand more broadly
exotic cultures. It helps them become more
reflective and inquiring. One IAESTE alumnus
said that you may be the best theoretical and
technical engineer but if you don’t have good
communication skills you are not going to go
far. The ability to communicate your ideas to
another person is essential in the engineering
world as well as having good listening skills.
Participating in IAESTE helps young people to
develop professionally. Step by step we are
expanding the geography of our exchange. It
includes Europe, America and Australia. Our
students are well received in such companies as
“Morgan Stanley” US, Japan Petroleum
Exploration Co, Irish National Petroleum
Corporation, Baker and McKenzie (Australia).
During the training period students have the
opportunity to see a different world themselves,
a different culture, economy, make many
friends. IAESTE is a programme of exchange,
the students not only broaden their outlook,
but also introduce our culture abroad. IAESTE
facilitates the creation of an open society.
Introduction to other cultures helps our
students not to idealise the merits of other
countries, but to find common features,
compare and draw positive conclusions.
Everyone becomes more flexible and at the
same time more critical. A student evaluates his
own values and sees more clearly the good and
bad points of different societies because he has
something to compare them with.
We take good care of the trainees’ reception on
arrival, introduce them to the Employers,
provide them with accommodation, organise
social events during the whole summer period,
such as parties, trips and visits to different
places, present our everyday life and culture to
enable them to adapt to the country, to the
culture and to the language.
One of the most interesting trips is Issyk Kul
Lake to Kyrgysia. We organise this trip at the
end of the traineeships and spend 5-7 days
there climbing the mountains, swimming and
visiting historical places. Everybody comes back
more healthy, relaxed and happy after sunny,
warm days and beautiful nature.
We always intend to develop and expand
IAESTE activities in Kazakhstan because in the
near future the technical specialties will be in
the greatest demand. During the years of
Perestroyka an entire generation of engineers
was lost - factories and plants stopped and
there was no sense in such professions. But
today new plants are being opened, equipped
with state-of-the-art machinery, and they need
young qualified specialists. We believe that
IAESTE creates a bridge that connects education
with the world of work. We have happy
examples when our alumni find good jobs
thanks to their IAESTE experience.
We would like to thank all the Kazakh
Universities and Companies who participate in
IAESTE: Institute of Nuclear Physics, “Shik”,
“KazGor”, “Massaget Plus” and countries who
have exchanged with us and all Members for
their co-operation, friendship and good
relations over these years. We are proud to be a
part of the big IAESTE family.
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